You've agreed to be part of a ground breaking experiment in cross blog
promotion and perspective study. Each of you will take the story kernel
provided in this email and craft a story in your own voice and style. At the
end of January, all of the participants will post their story on their blog
and we will see how many different stories can come out of just one idea. The idea to get you started is that a character is driving along with
something in the trunk when they are pulled over by the police.

Thanks
to Bryon Quertermous and Dave White for the great idea and for organizing
the whole event.

I
was taking my time with the jimmie. I
wanted my customer to feel he was getting his money’s worth. I’d given my standard line, “this is a Taurus,
and they’re harder to get into than most cars.”You could insert any make or model for the Taurus. The guy shook his
head, played with the ridiculous gold chain around his neck.

They
were a strange crew, even for a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop. The guy in the running suit and jewelry kept
looking around, playing with his chain.The
other two - heads shaven, dressed in worn jeans and oxblood Doc Martins- leaned
against the car, passing a bottle between them. They looked like shanty Irish. I wondered how
they had managed to lock their keys in the still running car.

One
of the Irish guys walked over to me, took a good look. “You Caucasian?”

“What?”

“I
just asked if you were Caucasian, looks like you could have a little sand
nigger in you.”

The
guy in the running suit inserted himself between us. “Come on Bernie; let the guy do his job.”

“I’m
Hungarian,” I said, turning my
attention back to the lock.

“I’m
in kind of a rush fella, and I’ve used a jimmie before. You don’t have to put on a show for me.Just open the door,” Running Suit said.

I
popped the latch, stepped back to admire my handiwork. RunningSuit pulled out his wallet, counted off five twenties. “I know we said $120 but this is all I have.”
That was fine with me. I only had to
turn $40 into the dispatcher, along with the receipt.

He
signed it without noticing I hadn’t put an amount at the bottom. I’d write $40 when I was back in the cab. Most people don’t notice. When they do, I put in whatever amount I get
off them; tear it up as soon as they’re out of sight. I have another receipt book that I had lifted
out of the dispatcher’s office. It was a
newer one, with the $40 stamped on the bottom of it. I fill out one of them and hand it in to the
dispatcher, applying the difference to my tuition. I was kind of glad this guy hadn’t noticed
though, I had run out of dummy receipts earlier in the day and I didn’t want to
waste any of the ones that I could write the amount in manually.

“The
sand nigger’s ripping you off Vinnie,” the Irish guy named Bernie said.

The
other Irish guy put the bottle on the roof of the car, slipped his hand into
his jacket pocket. “I hate being
overcharged by mud people.” The hand
came out, heavier with the addition of brass knuckles.

“You
two get in the fucking car. What do you
care? It’s not you fucking money.”

I
walked back to the tow truck, started the engine. I noticed another car pull up about a hundred
feet behind the one I had unlocked, a Corolla, late model. I pulled away and I was about to merge into
the Turnpike entrance when I realized I had left the receipt.I had to get it back or I’d catch hell from
the dispatcher.

I
pulled a k-turn and drove back, parked behind the car I’d jimmied. The Corolla was idling in front of the Taurus.
A guy was about to get into the
passenger’s side. He looked back at me,
took a couple of steps towards my tow truck. The driver said something in a foreign
language. The guy picked something up
off the ground, turned back around and hopped into the passenger’s seat. It drove away, fast.

I
walked up to the Taurus. One of Irish
guys was in the back seat, his head was leaning back, his mouth opened. I noticed he had no teeth, must have worn
dentures. I had no idea where they were.
The other Irish guy was slumped forward
in the passenger seat. Between them,
they had enough bullets in them that they could have opened their own ammo
store. I looked closer. It was hard to tell with all the blood, but it
looked like they were missing their ears.

The guy in the running suit had made it a
couple of feet away from the Taurus.Judging by the blood trail, I’d guess he’d crawled the second half of
his journey. He was only missing one
ear, and he had a gun in his dead hand.

A
car pulled up in front of the Taurus when I was on my way back to the tow
truck. I hopped in the cab, turned the
key. A guy ran from the car, stuck a
wallet with a badge on the tow truck window, said. “Officer Tolland, I’m an off duty New
Brunswick Detective. Out of the cab.”

******************

“Curtis
Benczik, Hungarian, right?”

The
state trooper was huge, probably six four, two
forty. But you didn’t notice his size first. It was his eyes. The left one was brown, the right one brown on
top, a milky bluish white in the lower hemisphere.

“I’m
a bohunk too. Vernon Herczog.” He held out his hand. “Organized crime division.”

I
knew a ton of state troopers from my job. They could form their own ethnic group. Crew cut, mustache, imposing size, muscles
that could only be larger with the addition of steroids. If any of them were transported in a time
machine to Omaha beach in their
uniforms, they would be shot by their own troops mistaking them for a Nazi
officer. This one wasn’t wearing a
uniform though.

“I’ve talked to
some of the troopers out of the East Brunswick barracks.
They say you’re a stand up guy.” He looked down at the papers in front of him. “No record to speak off. Taking part time classes at MiddlesexCountyCollege
during the day, driving a tow truck at night. So why’d you try to take off ?”

“I’ve grown fond
of my ears.”

“You read the
papers?” He poured some water out of the
pitcher into a glass.

“Yes Officer
Herczog, I read the Star Ledger almost every day.”

“Call me Vern.”He took a sip of the water, put on an
expression designed to have me think he was lost in thought.“Ever read about Aloysius Mazzucco or his son
Tullio? They usually have the word
alleged in front of their names when you see them in newsprint.”

“‘Alleged’ Al and
Tullio ‘Trifecta’ Mazzucco. Of course I
read about them. They’re the reason you have a job.”

“How about Serge
Petronokov, or the Vakensky brothers?”

“I can’t say I’ve
read those names.”

“You’d have to
look towards the back of the paper, at the obits. Someone put a couple of .38 slugs into
Serge.The Vakensky brothers, well it
wasn’t that clean.”

“Listen Vern, it’s
been a long night. I’ve got an early class…”

“The guy who
crawled away from the car, the organ grinder; names Vincent ‘Dial Tone’
Bilancia. I’ve been working Organized
Crime for ten years and I can’t figure out where these greasballs get their
nicknames.He was a known associate of
the Mazzuccos. The two Micks, Bernard and Seamus O’Riordan, a couple of low
lives. Hired muscle.”

“I want to call a
lawyer.”

“Have you wondered
about how they locked themselves out of the car?”

“If you could just
bring me to a phone…”

“They were coming
back from what was left of the Vakensky’s apartment in BrightonBeach. They pulled over to change their clothes, put
the blood stained ones in the trunk. We
think they popped the trunk from the inside, left the car running. The driver must have hit the button that
locked all the doors and locked the ignition key in.”

“That lawyer?”

“You can go.”

I walked towards
the interrogation room’s door.

“We couldn’t find
the receipt for when you jimmied their lock open. You have to sign it, right? I saw your signature on the paper work you
filled out for us. You’ve got pretty
good handwriting. Some of the Russians
can read more than Cyrillic.”

*****************

The guy leaning against the back drivers side
door was dressed in new jeans, Timberland Boots and an expensive looking pull
over black sweater. His head was shaved
completely bald, and I’d guess he was an Arab of some type, probably Lebanese.
I pulled the tow truck onto the shoulder, turned it around so it faced the BMW,
popped the hood. I grabbed the jumper
cables that I kept in the cab and hopped out.

“You called for a
jump?”

A man opened the
passenger door, got out, looked me over. He was dressed in an expensive looking suite,
double breasted. His dark hair was held
back by some type of styling gel. I’d
guess the Arab was a little older than me, late twenties.The guy with the gel was probably in his late
thirties.

“Curtis, right?”
The guy with the hair said.

“Yeah.”

The bald guy eased
off the car, walked around toward the passenger side.

“Passenger seat,”
the one with hair said.

“I don’t think
that’s a good idea.”

He pulled his suit
aside, showed the handle of a pistol, looked like a .38. “Don’t worry Curtis. If I wasn’t gonna take
you back to your truck I’d have drove my beater.I wouldn’t want to mess up my new Beemer.”

The bald guy
opened the passenger door. I walked
around the car, stepped in. I was about
to put the jumpers on the floor of the passenger seat. The guy with hair put his hand out towards me.
“I just got it detailed.”

I put the jumper
on the shoulder of the road.

“You can get it
when we come back.”

The bald guy got
in the back seat, directly behind me.

“I’m Tullio and my
associate is Omar.” He eased the Beemer
into the Turnpike traffic. “We want to
know what you saw the night our associate was killed.”

“I didn’t see
anything. I opened up the trunk, and by
the time I got back to pick up my receipt it was all over.”

“That’s a good
story; for the police. You’ve got to do
better for us.” Omar had leaned
uncomfortably close to my ear to say it.

“The cop, Herczog.
He said the guys were probably Russians.
They were pulling away when I came back.
One of them said something in a foreign
language, it could have been Russian.”

“The plate on the
car?”

“New
York.”

“Did you tell the
police that?” Tullio said.

“No.”

“First thing I
want you to do is to tell the cops everything you know. Tell them you had a sudden gush of memory.” He handed me a slip of paper with some numbers
written on it. “Tell them you remember
these numbers. It’s a partial plate
number. Let them fill in the missing digits.
The make of the car.”

“A Corolla, late
model.”

Tullio pulled the
car into one of the turnarounds in the middle of the Turnpike divider, the ones
that only the State Troopers are allowed to use. He eased the Beemer into the southbound
traffic.

“It was a
Mercedes, ten years old. Matches the
plates.”

“I don’t know
about this Tullio.”

“If you help us
out, maybe we can help you out somewhere down the line.”

“But Tullio I…”

“We know who did
it. We can’t get to them so we’re going
to have to let the cops earn their salary.” Tullio cruised through the Easy-Pass lane at
exit 9, turned the car around illegally in the exit ramp, barreled through the
tolls.

“We know you don’t
want to get involved, but you are. Wrong
place and all that. Why not turn it to your advantage?”Omar said as we headed North on the Turnpike,
towards my truck.

“Shit, Herczog,” Tullio
said. He was sitting on the back hood of his unmarked, parked behind my tow
truck, smoking a cigarette.

Tullio reached
into his suit jacket. “You’re gonna have to hold onto this for a while Curtis. This could be a parole violation.” He dropped the pistol in my lap.

“No fucking way,” I said, trying to hand the gun back to him.

“Hold it now or
get a real close look at it later.”

I put the gun
behind my belt, covered it as best I could with my work shirt.

“Didn’t your mom
tell you not to get in the car with strangers?” Herczog leaned into the window.
Let the cigarette fall from his lips into Tullio’s lap. Tullio flicked the cigarette onto the floor of
his car.

“Cut me a break
Herczog. I just had it detailed.”

“Get out and put
your hands on the hood,”Herczog said as
he stepped back from the driver’s side door.“You too,” he said, indicating Omar with a head knod.

“Don’t you need probable
cause?”Tullio asked as he opened up the
door and assumed the position.

“You just made a
furtive movement,”Herczog said as he
patted Tullio down.

“You dropped a lit
cigarette on my balls.”

“How about this.
I’ve got probable cause because you probably pumped a few thirty-eight rounds
into Serge Petronokov.”

“I read about it
in the papers.It’s a shame.Trotsky’s probably rolling around in his
grave.”Tullio said, as he leaned up
against his car and lit another cigarette.

Herczog ran his hands over Omar and found
nothing.

“Where
are you boys coming from?”

“We
had a little car problem. Called a tow
truck. Curtis here came out doing his
job.”Tullio said.

“Part
of your job, driving around with cheap mobsters?” Herczog was looking at Tullio, not me.

“Curtis
is a pro. Came for a test drive to make sure everything was OK. Right Curtis?” Tullio said.

I
opened up the door and walked to my tow truck.

********************

I
was sitting on my couch half asleep, watching a Girls Gone Wild infomercial
with the sound turned down, too tired to jerk off. I heard something on the landing outside my
apartment window. I rolled off the
couch, onto the floor.A human shaped
shadow formed behind the curtain. I
crawled into my bedroom, looked back through the door. The guy must have used a glasscutter. His hand came through the round hole in the
window, reached up, undid the latch.

I
crawled back to the nightstand next to my bed, opened it, grabbed the .38
Tullio hadn’t bothered picking up yet; waited until the guy was fully in my
apartment. Gave him time to draw his
gun, then I pulled the trigger three times. The guy spun around, a half a
revolution, fell to the floor. I ran
over to the window and looked out. Someone
took a few shots at me from the aisle two stories below my apartment. I threw myself on the floor and waited a
couple of seconds.

I heard sirens,
went to the front of my apartment, looked out the window, saw a couple of
police cars roll up onto the curb.I ran
to the back, to the window the guy had broken into. I was halfway out when I heard from the ally,
“Police officer, hold it right there. Put it down.” One of the cops held his pistol on me while
the other one climbed the fire escape and took the .38 I had placed on the
landing.

*****************

I
had lawyered up right away. Guy I know,
hangs out at my local bar, the Court Tavern. I had my doubts about him. How good can a lawyer be if he’s at a bar from
lunchtime on five days a week? But he
was the only one I knew, and I heard he has a great secretary who does all the
real work.

“It’s
not as bad as it seems. The shooting
looks clean, self defense. The gun
charges though. You’ve got a good record;
maybe we can plead it down,” my lawyer said.

Herczog
had let us alone in the interrogation room for a few minutes. Some one had knocked and told him he had a
phone call. He came in with a huge smile
on his face after my lawyer had given me the good news.

“Looks
like we both win on this one, Curtis. The
CSI guys think it looks like a classic case of self-defense. The Russkie had a
gun out when you shot him, that’s good for you. We found the .38 used to send Pertonokov to
the great Kremlin in the sky, that’s good for me. I can throw another case in the closed file. No need to re-read your rights, I’ll tack first
degree murder onto the illegal weapons charge.”

“I
didn’t kill Petronokov…”

“Glad
we got you before you got a chance to take a shot at Varishlev.”

“Who’s
Varishlev?”

“Worked
with Petronokov before you put him out of business. You had a partial of his license plate in your
pocket.”

I
looked over at my lawyer. He had taken
his glasses off his eyes, rubbed the lids with his fingers.

“
‘Alleged’ Al must be spending a fortune on diversity classes,” Herczog said. “It
warms my heart; first he lets a Lebanese into his organization, now one of my
own people.”

The End

Edited 5/7/216

Copyright(c) 2005 by Patrick J. Lambe

The first time I heard my native state called New
Joisey was by some guy who didn’t know the difference between the Dome at Rahway
and the Dome of the Rock. I tried to explain it to him, but realized I didn’t
know the difference myself. The ten people who can handle their r’s in the state
call it New Jersey. I’ve lived here most of my life; busted my hump as a
restaurant worker, lumber yard dog, truck driver, dispatcher, college scam
artist, construction drone etc. I’m currently trying to maxmimize my writing
time since my recent layoff from my
job as a telephone technician
.